Common Letter Box Mistakes

The seven messages, and the fix

• Too short. Words need at least 3 letters. Keep building before you submit.
• Same side. Two letters in a row cannot come from the same side. Change the middle letter to one from another side.
• Wrong start. Every word after the first must start with the last letter of the previous word. The game shows the required letter — start there, or undo the last word.
• Not in the word list. The word is not in this site's curated list yet. That is a limit of the list, not a judgement on the word. Try a more common word.
• Already used. You have used that word in this puzzle already. Pick a different word, even if it covers the same letters.
• Repeated letter. A letter may be used at most once within a single word. If you need a letter twice, it must appear in two different words.
• Unknown letter. The word uses a letter that is not on this board. Check the board again — it is easy to misread a tile.

Most mistakes are not vocabulary mistakes at all: they are side-rule or chain-rule slips. Slow down on the second word — that is where wrong-start and same-side errors cluster.